When the temperature starts dipping outside, I can feel the stirrings of anticipation in my chest.

It makes me excited about falling leaves, carved pumpkins, cornbread dressing and Christmas trees.

This is truly my most favorite time of the year.

Many will say when the sweet caress of spring sweeps across their skins, that’s their favorite time of the year. Or even when the stickiness of summer leaves one’s shirt plastered to their back — that’s their favorite time of year.

Not me.

When the trees begin to shed their leaves, I feel like I too can shed the coarse skin of summer and wrap myself tightly in the warmth against the cool fall air.

One of things about fall is when you walk outside, the briskness causes you to gasp against the cold. When you breathe the first breath of fall, the cool air tickles the back of your throat, and as you push it hard and fast through your lungs, it’s almost like a cleansing.

To me, that first deep breath of fall represents a new beginning.

That’s why fall is my most favorite time of year.

What can I say? I think differently than most.

However, when the girls and I awoke Tuesday morning, the last thing we wanted to do was tackle a new day.

Mercy, it was cold outside. It was a welcome change from the hot summer days, but it sure does draw you up short when you make the mistake of walking outside without a jacket on.

That morning, we wanted to burrow ourselves back under the covers where it was nice and warm.

There is just something about a warm bed on a cool morning that makes you not want to take on the world or school for that matter, as the case was for my girls.

My youngest ran to my room and said her baby toes were frozen. The middle one got lost somewhere under the five layers of blankets she had on her bed, and it took me 20 minutes to make her get up. The oldest one, well, she just whined.

Lord have mercy, nothing gets me more aggravated than whining.

It kind of takes that warm and fuzzy feeling of new beginnings and makes you want to pop them one good time with the hairbrush.

I’m pretty sure from their standpoint when it’s all said and done, the heat radiating from their backside doesn’t give off the same warm and fuzzy feeling that I had been talking about earlier.

However, this time of year, when the whining gets too much, I can evoke the “be good for Santa” argument that generally stops that train right in its tracks.

And when you think about it, I don’t have to tell them twice to get on their morning clothes.

See? The list just goes on and on…

And as does life, so does the seasons. Pretty soon it’ll be winter, then spring, then summer and then once again fall.